Jackstraws: Poems

In this new collection of sixty-two poems Charles Simic paints exquisite and shattering word pictures that lend meaning to a chaotic world populated by insects, bridal veils, pallbearers, TV sets, parrots, and a finely detailed dragonfly. Suffused with hope yet unafraid to mock his own credulity, Simic's searing metaphors unite the solemn with the absurd. His raindrops listen to each other fall and collect memories; his wildflowers are drunk with kissing the red-hot breezes; and his God is a Mr. Know-it-all, a wheeler-dealer, a wire-puller. In this latest lyrical gathering, Simic continues to startle his fans with the powerful and surprising images that are his trademark-slangy images of the ethereal, fantastic visions of the everyday, foreign scenes of the all-American-and moments full of humor and full of heartache.

What happens when the profound and the profane share the same breath?

• Pulitzer Prize Winning Poetry: From a master of the form, witness a world where God is a wheeler-dealer and raindrops collect memories.
• Dark Humor: Find searing metaphors that unite the solemn with the absurd, revealing the heartache and humor in a chaotic world.
• Philosophical Poetry: Encounter fantastic visions of the everyday, where insects, bridal veils, and TV sets become subjects of profound and startling observation.
• Lyrical and Slangy Voice: Discover the trademark voice that blends lyrical grace with American slang, creating images that are both powerful and surprising.

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"A master of the surreal, Simic packs his poems full of horror movies, bleak jokes, savage ironies and the things an insomniac notices on the ceiling. . . . A gem."-People

"Charles Simic is a contemporary master of the short lyric [who] makes an art out of clarity of vision."-The American Poet, Spring 1999

"These poems are like self-developing Polaroids, in which a scene, gradually assembling itself out of unexplained images, suddenly clicks into a recognizable whole."-The New York Review of Books